Since our 2012 conference in Copenhagen, EASST has been celebrating collaboration and cooperation in our field through a set of awards. In 2016 the awards will be presented at the joint EASST/4S conference in Barcelona. The call of nominations is open and this document describes the rationale for the awards as well as the process and conditions for nomination.
Rationale
The tension between the recognition of individual achievement and the appreciation of collective contribution is a long observed dilemma of the academic endeavour. Although there is some evidence in the wider knowledge system of a shift toward team efforts and greater collaboration, the institutional career reward system has increasingly favoured individually authored publication outputs as the prime measure of performance. This is accompanied by a growing tendency toward competitive point-scoring between institutions.
As an organisation representing a broad collection of professional scholars and researchers, the EASST Council believes there is a need to restore a healthier balance within the reward system between individual achievement and collective contribution. There is a need to recognise more explicitly significant types of collaboration or leadership that has contributed to the cohesion of, and community within, our field. In order to do this a new range of EASST awards was launched in 2012 designed to reward outstanding activities, which have significantly developed interactions between individuals and resulted in novel and influential collaborative results. There is a significant potential of STS scholarship in Europe for influencing politics and public dialogue, which is not sufficiently exploited. The creation of awards can help to remedy this by creating more visibility of STS insights.
The three awards were named in the honour of individuals who are no longer with us, yet have left an enduring imprint on our distinctive European scholarly identity over the last 30 years. The awards, however, are not exclusively intended for single individuals but can also be given to an organization, a community or a group of people.
Ziman award
The Ziman award will be made for a significant innovative collaborative activity to promote public interaction with science and technology.
This could involve, for example, a forum or discussion community, or an interface with non-academic users. Selection will be based on originality and influence alongside collaboration and / or wider participation.
John Ziman had a distinguished career as a theoretical physicist and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967. He died in 2005 at the age of 79. His book on the social dimensions of science – Public Knowledge, was published in 1967 and marked the first of a series of influential studies of science as a collective human endeavour. In the mid 1980s he joined the Department of Social and Economic Studies at Imperial College, London and set up the Science Policy Support Group for the Economic and Social Research Council. He was actively involved in a variety of initiatives concerning the social responsibility of science. John Ziman was a key figure in the formation of EASST and was its President from 1983 – 1986. He was an avid promoter of initiatives at the public interface of science and was an eloquent and witty commentator on the popular understanding of science.
Amsterdamska award
The Amsterdamska award will be made for a significant creative collaboration in an edited book or special issue in the broad field of science and technology studies.
Selection will be based on an anthology in the broad field of STS, that through its publication process (such as series of meetings, collective work, etc.) and due to the quality of the volume makes a substantive contribution to the field in terms of originality or impact; the quality of the editing, as reflected in the quality of the volume as a whole; interdisciplinarity, while not a requirement, will be valued; inclusiveness across career stages will also be valued.
Olga Amsterdamska was lecturer in Science & Technology Studies at the University of Amsterdam for 25 years. She died in 2009 at the age of 55. Following a study of schools of thought in linguistics she focused her personal work on epistemology in biomedicine. She was editor of Science, Technology & Human Values between 1994 and1998. During Olga’s editorship of the journal, the STS community benefitted from all of her core traits as an academic – her open mind and broad vision of the field and dedication to its development, her warm-heartedness and inclusiveness, and her incisive critical thinking and high standards of quality. These were also qualities that Olga brought with her to EASST and 4S meetings through the years and that helped make those meetings the community-building enterprises they have become. She was one of the editors of the third edition of the Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (2007).
Freeman award
The Freeman award will be made for a publication which is a significant collective contribution to the interaction of science and technology studies with the study of innovation
Selection will be based on the successful development of social approaches to the dynamics of innovation, originality, and better understanding of the pursuit of innovation for societal and environmental goals. Consideration will be given to the publication process (such as series of meetings, collective work, etc.) as well as the publication itself.
Chris Freeman was Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex for over 20 years and also with the University of Limburg for many years. He died in 2010 at the age of 88. An economist by background, he produced many highly influential works addressing the dynamics of innovation and the Schumpeterian analysis of long waves of technological change. He also wrote on the social and political aspects of science. He was a founder of the major research centres SPRU and MERIT and was the founder and long standing editor of the journal Research Policy. An internationalist in outlook he was a key promoter of PAREX, a European collaboration in the history and social studies of science that was the direct forerunner of EASST. A modest yet inspiring figure he was renowned for his warm enthusiasm and supportiveness for all who shared a genuine interest in science, technology and society, whatever their background. He was deeply committed to social change for a more just and sustainable world.
General conditions for the awards
The awards are presented at the 2016 EASST/4S conference in Barcelona. For each award a € 1000 prize will be associated.
The deadline for nominations is 1 February 2016
Nominations should be sent to to awards@easst.nomadit.net using the nomination form available from the EASST website (www.easst.nomadit.net)
- For the Amsterdamska and Freeman awards, contributions must have been published in 2014 or later. For the Ziman award, current impact / influence should be demonstrated .
- An underlying criteria for all awards is evidence of collaboration
- Collaborations should have a distinctive European dimension
For all awards the following conditions also apply:
- The award process will be managed by the EASST Council
- Self-nominations are accepted
- Submissions for one award may be considered for another if deemed appropriate
- Council members are not eligible as leaders of collaborative awards during the time of their service
The list of winners of previous awards can be found on the EASST website homepage (www.easst.nomadit.net)
Procedure for nomination
Submissions will only be accepted if they include a completed nomination form.
Submissions must include a copy of all materials, which the nominator wishes to be considered. If possible these should be in electronic form (pdfs). Otherwise printed copies can be sent. Please do not specify web links as part of the submission unless the achievement is a website or similar.
Submissions must be emailed to awards@easst.nomadit.net by 1st February 2016. Any material which needs to be sent in printed form should be posted to:
Professor Maja Horst
Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen
Karen Blixens Vej 4
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark.
Please retain proof of posting on or before 1st February 2016.
For any enquiries please contact awards@easst.nomadit.net.
